Man, three-year-olds. You think you’re all set, you’ve read a book or two, maybe talked to other folks with kids. Then Bowen hits three, and bam, it’s like a whole different universe you’ve stepped into. Everything, and I mean everything, can turn into a major negotiation, or, you know, a full-blown meltdown. My big ‘practice’ lately? Just figuring out the art of getting him to do, well, pretty much anything without kicking up a massive fuss. But let me tell you about one specific thing that seriously felt like I was trying to climb Everest every single morning: getting that kid dressed.
My first attempts were, let’s be real honest, a bit rubbish. I tried the old ‘because I’m the parent and I said so’ line. Yeah, that was a big mistake. Mostly just led to more tears, and I’m pretty sure some of them were mine. Then I shifted to the ‘if you get dressed, you can have this awesome thing’ strategy. That worked, sometimes, but man, it felt like I was training a tiny, very demanding hostage negotiator, not my son. Plus, his list of ‘awesome things’ just kept getting longer and more complicated.
I remember this one morning, it was a new level of awful. We were already running late, which is pretty standard for us, unfortunately. I was stressed out, he was digging his heels in, you know, literally just refusing to move. I was really about to lose my cool. He just wouldn’t put on his shirt. It was like that shirt was made of lava. That’s when it really hit me: going head-to-head was a complete dead end. I needed a totally new ‘practice’. My wife, she’s usually the one with all the patience, but even she was throwing her hands up with this dressing battle. We’d take turns, and honestly, neither of us were scoring any wins in this particular war.
So, I figured I had to get a bit more creative. My grand, genius plan? Turn the whole thing into a game. Sounds dead simple, doesn’t it? But with these little guys, it’s all about how you sell it.
- First off, I started laying out his clothes the night before we actually needed them. But here’s the twist: I’d pretend his clothes were ‘superhero getups’ or ‘special explorer gear’ for the next day’s big adventure.
- Then, come morning, instead of the usual ‘get dressed now!’, it became ‘time to power up your superhero suit!’ or ‘quick, let’s get our adventure outfit on!’
- I’d make all sorts of goofy sound effects. Putting on a sock? That was a ‘whoosh!’ sound. Pants going on was like ‘launching a rocket’, complete with countdown. You feel like a complete idiot doing it half the time, but hey, if it works.
- Sometimes, I’d even pretend I couldn’t figure out how to put on my own shirt or something, and he’d have to ‘help me’ and show me how. Kids absolutely love being the one who knows more.
It wasn’t some kind of overnight magic fix, you gotta understand that. There were still plenty of days when that imaginary ‘blue monster under the bed’ (or just plain old toddler stubbornness) won the round. But slowly, bit by bit, the resistance started to wear down. We started having more giggles during the process, and definitely less screaming. The whole circus act went from a stressful 30-minute wrestling match to, on the good days, a pretty smooth 10-minute routine.
My big takeaway from this whole ‘3 year old Bowen’ dressing saga? You just gotta meet them where they are, in their own little world. Their heads are so full of imagination and wild ideas, and sometimes, you just have to dive in there with them. It’s way less about trying to force them into your box and much more about guiding them in a way that actually makes sense to their way of thinking. It’s still a work in progress, of course, just like pretty much everything else with a three-year-old, but we’re getting there. One superhero sock at a time, you know?
